According to a new study by the University of California at Santa Barbara research center, 10,000 Americans have been discharged from the armed services in the decade since the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was enacted.

Remarkably, 350 of them were officers, health care professionals, or both.

Boyd, who was on the way to becoming an officer herself, decided to reveal her sexual orientation in a memo to superiors. She says she had no choice.

“I couldn’t lie to my fellow cadets or pretend I was something I wasn’t,” she explains. “It really had no bearing on the type of cadet I was. I was still excelling. I was leading. I was training people. I had attained high leadership positions. Still, before I came out, I knew that none of that would matter.”

I’ve read her memo. No demands for a pink triangle on her uniform.

No special treatment, whatsoever.

But Boyd was right – it didn’t matter. Not only was this top recruit discharged from the Air Force, she lost an appeal and was forced to pay back $30,990 to the ROTC. Considerable debt for a young woman.

“I was 100 percent committed to finishing my program at CU and finishing the commitment I had made to the Air Force to serve for five years after college in

active-duty service,” says Boyd.

The Air Force, of course, has no choice in the matter.

Sadly, neither did Boyd.

“I really couldn’t maintain the officer path I had embarked on,” she says. “I was forced to let go of the most important core values that we preach: integrity and honesty.”

The recent arguments over gay marriage often focus on the potential breakdown of the institution of marriage. The same argument simply doesn’t apply here. I challenge anyone to illustrate how Mara Boyd the lesbian is less qualified to serve than Mara Boyd the straight.

Boyd, for one, is convinced her sexual orientation had no bearing on job performance or professionalism.

In fact, she believes staying silent would have had a destructive impact on her performance.

“When you’re in a profession where you have other people’s lives in your hands, you not only expect 100 percent honesty from them,” she says, “but you reciprocate as an officer, by leading by example.”

A number of CU professors tried to help her raise money to stay in school. Rep. Mark Udall wrote on her behalf.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” only affects a fraction of the 1.4 million Americans in uniformed services.

But that’s beside the point.

The question is, why are we limiting freedoms guaranteed under the First Amendment to citizens who voluntarily step up to defend us?

Obviously, Boyd doesn’t understand.

“The ban needs to be lifted completely,” says Boyd, who says she’d love to sign up for my “don’t ask, don’t care” initiative. “We need to give the commitment and dedication to these people that they have given our country.”

There’s been way more than enough written about Donald Trump’s battle with kneeling football players — especially with a major crisis underway in Puerto Rico — but one thing really does bother me that’s been revealed during this brouhaha: the extent to which many Americans have accepted the anti-democratic and false equivalence of patriotism and the military.